Promise of greener hue to pulp mill at final hour

By Andrew Darby

Yesterday, the federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke, extended by a week his final decision on approvals for the $2.2 billion project, after being told Gunns was seeking tougher regulations.

Gunns' managing director, Greg L'Estrange, said the company was proposing more stringent rules after consulting community and environmental groups, telling them the mill would use a bleaching process requiring 40 per cent less chlorine than first planned.

Mr Burke said Gunns had sought the incorporation of stricter controls, along with other decisions he is to make on the environmental impact management plan.

''My department needs to assess these proposed variations to the original pulp mill proposal and allow the independent expert group to examine these variations,'' the minister said.

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Among the critical decisions the government must make is a sign-off on modelling of mill effluent dispersal in Bass Strait.

At its annual general meeting in November, Gunns told shareholders that modelling work showed the mill would have no impact on marine ecosystems, but Environment Tasmania said it was still concerned about the effect of up to 51 gigalitres a year of industrial effluent being discharged into the sea.

Mr Burke's decision will coincide with next week's planned release of an interim report, by the facilitator of the peace talks, Bill Kelty, on progress towards a resolution of the state's native forest logging conflict.

An initial statement of principles agreed by industry and green groups last year only gave backing to ''a pulp mill'' for the state. The Tasmanian Greens leader, Nick McKim, warned this week that further agreement could be jeopardised by Labor Party moves to specifically include Gunns' project in a final deal. ''That pulp mill has poisoned political debate in Tasmania for many, many years, and now, if the Labor Party gets its way, it may cost Tasmania the chance to end the forests dispute that has divided our state,'' he said.

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has declined to distance the government from assistance for the mill. The Tasmanian Premier, Lara Giddings, has also refused to rule out support for the mill.

In the peace talks, Mr Kelty is balancing pressing competing demands - for a moratorium on logging in high conservation value state-owned forests, and a guarantee of continuing saw-log wood supplies.

The potential protection of up to 600,000 hectares of old-growth forest and the provision of a wood supply are reliant on Gunns' decision to move out of native forest logging.